Chapter 70: The Years to Come (3)

“Master, the Su Rou family has a big cherry tree. When we were young, we would go there every year to enjoy the fruit.” I couldn’t help but tell Master about an old memory as I walked through the village.

“Oh? Are you leaving tomorrow? Why don’t you talk to Su Rou?” Master asked with a smile.

I was silent for a moment, then said, “You said that Su Rou and I would always see each other again, so I won’t say anything.”

“Okay.”

“Master, Liu Chunyan is not here. I haven’t seen her this winter vacation. I heard that the county is making up for missed classes early.

“In the future, if Liu Chunyan writes to you again, you won’t be able to receive it.”

“How do you know Liu Chunyan is writing to me?”

“Su Rou said so.”

“Damn it!”

“Master, when I was a child, I loved to come to this field to pick corn. This family’s corn was the best.”

“Master, I used to love to play in this ditch when I was a kid…”

“Master, I had a fight in this small bamboo forest. We made a deal to fight one-on-one after school…”

In front of the scenes of memories, my master and I had already walked to the village market. My master asked me, “Do you want to go to the school and take a look?”

“No, I don’t want to go to school. There’s no one here now. Places like schools are always places where people belong, places that belong to memories.”

“Okay, let’s go for a meal.”

It was still the same old lady’s house, and this time, it happened to be lunchtime. The four generations of her family were eating together, which was very normal, but the atmosphere was exceptionally warm. The two uninvited guests, my master and I, were also warmly received. Because of the last time we were fighting worms, the people in the village remembered my master.

In particular, the old lady kept saying, “You came to my house for dinner, and I didn’t know you were a doctor.”

The meal was a simple four-season bean stew with some potatoes and thinly sliced bacon. It was very fragrant, and the few side dishes were simple but fresh, so delicious that the eater wanted to swallow his tongue.

I ate the rice in big mouthfuls, and the old lady couldn’t help but say, “Hey, son, slow down. Didn’t your grandfather say that you had a problem with spitting rice?”

“Cough…” I coughed up a mouthful of rice. This old lady has a good memory, she even remembered the nonsense my master said. Fortunately, I turned my head in time, otherwise I would have sprayed everyone at the table.

The old lady was worried and told her daughter-in-law to quickly pour me some water, while muttering, “Look, look, he’s sick. Fortunately, your grandfather is a doctor.”

I glared at the old man Jiang with resentment. He was eating his meal in large mouthfuls, as if it had nothing to do with me.

Back then, I didn’t have the vocabulary to say anything, but if I were to do so now, I would certainly ‘flip the table and rise’, pointing at the master and yelling, ‘You’re a spitting lunatic!

We had a very happy meal, and even my melancholy was somewhat alleviated. The old lady also told us about a new thing that had happened. She said that two people from the countryside had come the day before, looking very rich, and were accompanied by the village leader, saying that they were looking for someone.

“Who are they looking for?” my master asked.

“I don’t know either, but it seems like they haven’t found anyone yet. What do the leaders in the township know? They have to ask us old folks, but I think they will definitely come to ask us.” The old lady said proudly, as if waiting for someone to come and ask.

After leaving the old lady’s house, my master and I wandered around the town square. I said, “Master, let’s go to the Hungry Ghost Tomb. After the matter there is settled, I still want to go and take a look. It’s a place where you can die nine times and still survive.

“That’s fine. In a few days, the archaeological team will be here. I’m still waiting for some information to be given to me at that time. One of the things in the tomb was taken away. That’s very important. Let’s go for a walk.”

As we were walking towards the Hungry Ghost Tomb, we happened to meet the leaders of the township.

A group of people, accompanied by a couple who seemed to be husband and wife, were walking towards the hungry ghost tomb, talking as they walked.

The head of the township knew that my master was extraordinary, so he naturally greeted him warmly. When he saw the two of us, he came over and shook my master’s hand warmly, saying, “Master Jiang, what a coincidence! I just happened to have something I wanted to ask you about, but I didn’t know where to find you.”

“What’s the matter?” My master looked at the two strangers, somewhat confused.

The two people were very fashionable in their clothes. The man was gentle and refined, and the woman was elegant. It was obvious that they came from a wealthy family, and from a big city. The man was holding a black leather bag tightly in his arms.

“Let me introduce them…” the village chief began enthusiastically.

After the introduction, we learned that these two people were really a married couple from Taiwan. At that time, it was very difficult to come from Taiwan. They were looking for people, but they couldn’t find anyone. They could also look for descendants.

However, they had arrived the day before and had not yet found anyone or any descendants. They were a bit anxious and asked my master for help because most of the people who had passed away in the village had been buried in the bamboo forest in the past, but it had been moved and my master was in charge of it.

They wanted to ask if the person they were looking for was buried in that cemetery.

After listening to the introduction, my master asked, “Who are you looking for?”

The man shook my master’s hand very sincerely and said, “I am here to fulfill my grandmother’s wish. We are looking for a person named Li Fengxian. She was a very famous opera actress, but we heard that she later returned to this small village.”

“Li Fengxian?!” My master and I exclaimed at the same time. We had not forgotten that sad love story.

“What? Master Jiang knows Li Fengxian? Where is she? Can you take us there?” The Taiwanese man was excited and suddenly grabbed my master’s hand tightly.

It was his wife who reminded him of his behavior and he was embarrassed to explain, “Master Jiang, Li Fengxian was a very important person to my grandmother. To be honest, my grandmother was not happy until the end. Her only wish…”

The man couldn’t continue, but my master looked at him and said, “Was your grandmother called Yu Xiaohong? Did she die? Is she in Taiwan?”

My master had once received a photo of Yu Xiaohong and made a paper effigy of her according to her appearance and burned it for Li Fengxian. However, he also learned that later, the whole country could not find this person named Yu Xiaohong, who had actually gone to Taiwan.

“How do you know?” the Taiwanese man was surprised.

“Forget it, come with me,” the master sighed.

It was eight years later, but Li Fengxian finally waited for Yu Xiaohong…

The lonely grave, with a few incense sticks, is comforting. Is it the living or the dead?

I looked at the sad man in front of the grave and couldn’t help but feel a sense of the impermanence of life.

It turned out that the black leather bag the man was holding tightly was actually the urn containing Yu Xiaohong’s ashes. After he had grieved for a while, the man looked at me and my master and said, “Do you know the story of my grandmother and Li Fengxian?”

My master nodded and said, “I know.”

“I also heard this story when my grandmother passed away 12 years ago. My grandmother was a very good person and a very good person. I respect her very much and I respect her feelings. Her only wish after she died was that we could take her to find Li Fengxian, and if she was alive, she would like to see Li Fengxian. But we didn’t know… it was just that my grandmother was very determined, she said she would definitely be buried together.” The man said with some hesitation.

I understand his concerns. He doesn’t know the final outcome of Li Fengxian. He is concerned that if Li Fengxian has a family, it would be very bad etiquette to bury her with her grandmother. This is a taboo. He also doesn’t understand why his grandmother was so stubborn and so convinced.

My master told the village leaders to go back first, because there were still some things that could not be said in those days. Then, after the village leaders had gone back, my master told them about the end of Li Fengxian.

The couple listened with tears in their eyes and bowed deeply in front of Li Fengxian’s grave.

“I said to Grandma why she was always unhappy, and she said to give her a peaceful life and protect her in a different way. They…” The man couldn’t go on, and the woman was wiping her tears.

“Honey, Grandma and Grandma Fengxian will definitely be together in the next life,” the woman comforted.

“Yes, it will definitely be possible.” The man also firmly believed.

It’s good to have a wish. My master never told them that in fact, Li Fengxian had already been a ghost for a long time, and once she had fulfilled her wish, she had already dispersed. Where would there be a next life? In this world, even if you went to the ends of the earth, you would never find Li Fengxian.

Eight years, just eight years too late. Li Fengxian did not wait for eight years for Xiaohong to return and be with her forever. Why is the karma of this world so bitter?

They could have been buried in the same grave, but unfortunately, there was no longer a soul to sing opera on the grave, singing to the sad night: “What a pity that the good times and beautiful scenery are gone…”

Many years later, I happened to hear a song called “Burying the Heart.” When the lingering, poignant, cold and indifferent lyrics were sung, “The butterfly flew away, and the heart was not there. It was greedy for a little dependence, greedy for a little love…” I would think of the story of Li Fengxian and Yu Xiaohong.

That line, which is so profound and so deeply sad, is a sea of sorrow, and it is hard to bear. It is also a story of the entanglement of cause and effect in the world.

Finally, my master and I left. That morning, it was also a fine spring rain.

No one saw us off, and no one knew that my master and I had left. The people of this village will have to go on living their lives. Maybe they will remember my master and me, or maybe they will forget us after a while.

But I can’t forget, because this is my home.

Many years later, I heard Su Rou say that he had been crying in the station in the village, because he had run up the mountain on the day we left and found it empty. He ran to the station, which was already dark, hoping to see us, but where could we be in the empty station at night?

“Sanwa, you son of a bitch, you didn’t even tell me when you left. I thought I didn’t care about being apart, but I was still a hopeless crybaby. What were you doing when I got to the station?” This is what Su Rou told me.

But I don’t remember what I was doing at the time. I just remember that one afternoon on the train, my master suddenly said to me, “Sanwa, the train has left Sichuan.”

I was suddenly overcome with sadness, and finally, I left.